Every winter in my city, once the leaves all fell, our trees would be draped in shredded plastic bags. Banning single use plastic bags has done a significant amount to beautify this place.

My state did away with bags a few years ago, and you now never see bags blowing around or stuck on trees. It also seems everyone stopped complaining about it once we got over the hump of "remember to bring your bags".

So we are just left with a small group of old timers, who would probably bring back metal (pull) tab cans if they could, complaining about it. Ironically its the same group of people who blocked windmills because they are "unsightly".

I remember a debate in Texas politics a few years ago because livestock were dying from consumption of littered plastic bags.

The state government response was to ban the ban of plastic bags.

But the pollution problem from plastic bags is solved equally well if we bury them or recycle them. Provided your municipality doesn't just dump trash in the nearest river which is an issue in some parts of the world.

Since we can't get 100% compliance in rich countries and poor countries can't afford landfills that's a good reason to not use plastic. But it's not a good reason to have plastic recycling programs.

It's a conspicuous part. But energy use is still a problem. Like, maybe high-kicking people throwing trash everywhere would be cheaper solution then letting them do it, but with paper instead of PET. If we won't calculate we can't be sure

> Streets, parks, trees

You forgot the biggest and probably the most sensitive dump: the (deep) sea.

Another point, to counter the " plastic bags are cheap, cotton is expensive" argument, is that most of the reusable bags are plastic too. They are way cheaper to produce than cotton bags, and earn their keep within about 5 to 10 uses as opposed to 100 or whatever the crazy figure was for cotton bags.

Right. This seems to be written by someone who has never been outside and seen the amount of plastic alongside roads or caught in bushes etc. And this is in a country that is supposed to be good at collecting waste.

> That conveniently ignores the drilling, extracting, transporting, refining, and transporting again to make "polyethylene resin".

It also ignores the energy requirements to grow the cotton. This isn't the gotcha you think it is.

The energy to make the cotton bags presumably also involves lots of drilling and extracting, at least currently.

Broadly, I agree with your comment. I have seen a few experimental plastic drink bottles that claim to have a minimum percent produced from plants. It is a little bit insane to imagine the amount of chemical and energy gymnastics required to make plastic bottles from plants, but, hey, the big drinks companies are desparate not to lose PET bottles. To be clear: I am not defending this type of plastic! I am only pointing out that it does exist.

    > That conveniently ignores the drilling, extracting, transporting, refining, and transporting again to make "polyethylene resin".

Somewhat adjacent, in many rich countries, in the last 10 years there has been a big push to remove plastic drink straws. I think it might have worked. Initially, the designs and performance of wax coated paper straws were pretty terrible, but chemists and material scientists have been working hard to improve the product. I feel like paper-ish drink straws are here to stay.

If we used oil only for plastics it would probably last us 1000 years. By that time we'd figure out how to grow plastics.

ALSO, what is the obsession with embodied energy?

Like lets think about plastic bags from an object use standpoint. Given you have a collection of stuff to carry would you prefer:

A) A reasonably sturdy bag that can be styled to your preference (like with art or whatever) that you have to remember to bring with you when you need.

B) The literal minimum possible material to be considered a bag. Even money whatever you put into it will punch straight through the bottom, or you'll need to use 2-4 nested bags anyway. And it'll be uncomfortable to hold the whole time.

I think from an object use perspective a reusable bag is more pleasant to use.

But embodied energy calculations are convenient because you can get numbers to compare. But it ignores externalities.

Like if you actually considered the embodied energy of the median tote bag vs the median plastic bag from the point that it was extracted from the ground to the point that it returns to dust, I think the story would look really different. I'll bet a sizable percentage of plastic bags don't even make it through their first use. Meanwhile I've got tote bags that I think are fully 15 years old. Plus if you consider the remediation future generations will need to do for plastic bags. meanwhile I can actually bury a cotton tote bag in the dirt to decompose and it doesn't need infrastructure to prevent poisoning the water supply.

Did the authors consider the embodied energy of the landfill itself? Shipping? Trash collection? Ongoing monitoring? The embodied energy of the future carbon capture system?

It's just so convenient to look only at the materials, equate that to kg of co2, and use that for whatever narrative makes you feel good.

Almost all EA takes I’ve read strike me as basic contrarianism

> "Instead of paying more to recycle, we could spend that money far more effectively on other environmental mitigation measures like carbon capture."

Carbon capture is a scam to allow fossil consumption to continue as is. The only path forward is rapid destruction of fossil fuel demand and transitioning to clean energy and electric mobility. At this time, there is no effective technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Therefore, capital is best invested where that investment will most rapidly avoid carbon emissions. Broadly speaking, at this time, this is electrifying light and heavy vehicles (includes scooters and ebikes!), and decommissioning coal plants (low carbon generation, batteries, etc will eventually push out fossil gas generation). It's not sexy, but it's straightforward.

Carbon capture may be an effective option in the future, but at the moment, it in no way can be relied on as a component of climate change mitigation. It's performance art.

Solar Power Is Booming in Emerging Markets - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49537375 - September 2026

Global heating will hit at least 1.8C, UN warns, and there are ‘no good outcomes’ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49536875 - September 2026

Ex-oil engineer warns about potential climate collapse [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49335833 - August 2026

EU Locks In Plan To Triple Energy Storage Capacity By 2030 - https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/EU-Locks-In-Plan-... - August 7th, 2026 ("The EU has agreed to nearly quadruple its energy storage capacity, from 55 GW today to a targeted 200 GW by 2030.")

Climeworks’ capture fails to cover its own emissions - https://heimildin.is/grein/24581/ - May 15th, 2025

Carbon capture has a long history. Of failure - https://thebulletin.org/2022/09/plagued-by-failures-carbon-c... - September 1st, 2022

> The entire efficacy of the carbon capture process has been called into question by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In its special report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage, the IPCC stated: “CO2 storage is not necessarily permanent. Physical leakage from storage reservoirs is possible via (1) gradual and long-term release or (2) sudden release of CO2 caused by disruption of the reservoir.” Carbon capture has been used as a justification for new oil and gas projects. It has a history of poor performance, only captures a fraction of the total emissions from the lifecycle of oil and gas production and its long-term efficacy is questionable.

The push for recycling has been successful at making people feel better about themselves, not successful at saving energy or raw materials. The article also goes on at length about this, but most of what's put in recycling bins gets thrown out anyways and folks regularly put stuff in recycling bins that can't be recycled, just increasing the cost of recycling programs while lowering their effectiveness. Recycling metal cans and containers is a no brainer, recycling most plastics is of questionable value bordering on actively harmful[1].

[1] https://www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1131131088/recycling-plastic-...

Can you use the cotton bag 173 times? Cotton wears out over time. They also didn't ask about the cost of washing the cotton bag, which really should be done once in a while since they collect dirt and food particles - this will increase the times you need to use the bag. (it isn't clear if it lasts longer with or without washing - dirt is often sharp enough to wear the bag, but washing also puts wear on them)

Similar for the cup - I've dropped and broke several ceramic cups in my life - and I don't drink coffee/tea. Those cups will never get another use since the shards are scrap.

    > a mug 1,000 times to beat disposable cups sounds completely reasonable.

I have a reusable cotton bag that has been in use for 30 years. That's an extreme example, perhaps, but all the same

thats assuming the plastic bag is used once, but i've always reused them, sometimes had the same bags for 10 years

however i have never re-used a paper bag because they are awfully loud and cannot be compressed. it is the worst kind of bag.

I have been using the same mug for 50 years.

Absolutely.

Burning waste is listed in the article as an even better for the environment, but somewhat more expensive method.

The methane that landfills produce is routinely captured and burned for power, they may otherwise flare it off before it can contribute to the greenhouse effect. This is also mentioned in the article.

That's only if it's buried. Properly managed compost is the best option.

The thing with methane is that it has a lifespan of something like 10 years in the atmosphere before it breaks down to CO2 + water, while CO2 persists for centuries. I suspect that burning would release more net CO2 than emitting the methane and having it eventually break down to CO2.

[1] https://science.nasa.gov/earth/explore/earth-indicators/meth...

> A molecule of methane traps more heat than a molecule of CO2, but methane has a relatively short lifespan of 7 to 12 years in the atmosphere. CO2 can persist for hundreds of years or more.

Landfills control for that and usually dispose the methane on a less polluting form.

In New York City where disposable bag bans occurred I’m quite certain the average “reusable” bag gets used a single-digit number of times. Grocery stores charge 25c for a “reusable” bag in the case that you forgot to bring your own, and every household has a bag full of bags that never get used. Now they’ve re-allowed disposable paper bags, which seems sensible to me.

Returned bottles have a finite lifetime after what they have to be trashed. Glass bottles tend to be reused some (small) tens of times, plastic bottles certainly last a lot less.

Yes… I don't think the author is thinking on a long enough time horizon.

I'm curious what happens to these landfill sites in 100, 1000 and 10k years. Do they inevitably break down and leak into the water table? Do they eventually stop off-gassing and become inert? Do they become fossilized layers of sediment on a long enough horizon? If we maintain our current waste levels, how much land is required by the year 3000?

I imagine part of what makes it difficult is that people can and do reuse plastic bags. If I reuse a plastic bag 20 times before it breaks then you now have to reuse your cotton bag 3460 times, which is much harder.

One argument for PET packaging bans is that there are people for whom the discipline of disposal is hard. If it's true, than re-using cotton bags for 173 times is hard - on average level, not for you personally.

I think it's beyond many people. A typical pattern is that you forget your bag at home and end up buying another one. After this happens a few times you now have an excess of reusable bags such that you will never recoup the "173 times" on all of them.

On one hand, you are not wrong, sands differ in qualities, but the question is what you need to make from it. Glass-grade sands aren't everywhere, but they are abundant anyway. Some industries, like solar panels production, require higher purity, and such sands reserves are way more limited.

To add more fuel to your well-lit (!) fire, landfill projects also cannot use desert sand for similar reasons. It really needs sand from a river because it can create a stable bed for soil in a way that desert sand cannot.

Using the toilet in this manner is the worst option. You’re sending your trash straight into the water treatment system let alone damaging your building pipes and whatnot, though it sounds like you rent.

I respect the approach and find it fascinating even though I think it’s crazy aha. I don’t think this would be very compatible at all with a lot of people’s cooking habits or hobbies, etc. Or if your apartment complex has an inconvenient garbage disposal location.

And there’s a lot of garbage I wouldn’t feel comfortable putting in the freezer.

How do you handle bathroom trash? I’m thinking feminine hygiene products specifically. Surely you don’t recommend flushing those right?

>Oh, you can also just freaking flush small things down the toilet.

People with this attitude are why the drains in my apartment keep backing up and my landlord sends emails threatening to evict whoever's flushing things they shouldn't.

Erm, was that part about keeping trash in the freezer serious?

For me a freezer is for food, I don't mix that with garbage by intention. (small particles of it will remain)

I didn't flag the article, but I have similar feelings to you. The weird part: This media source is usually high-quality with well-researched and well-written (balanced) and articles. They really fell flat on this one. And yes, the carbon capture comment made me clench my fist. I have been listening to that hogwash for at least twenty years with very little progress made. I'm not saying that it cannot work, but I doubt with current technology it can be done in an economical manner.

I agree with a lot of what you’re saying but flagging a post because you no longer trust the source is a misuse of the functionality.

I don't understand this comment. As I understand, many types of incineration (coal, garbage, etc.) produces some amount of fly ash. This can be used when making concrete. I think that is a good way to dispose of fly ash.

Strongly agree. I wish more things came in jars, cans and sacks. I would pay a premium for this alone. The plastic liner in a tall box workflow adds so much friction to storing using and disposing groceries. I despise cereal boxes.

There’s precious few places on earth that don’t have room for landfills, and those places will be shipping their refuse whether it is sent as “recycling” or as trash. The article also points out that incineration is an option to reduce volume, but expensive.

There are cases of shipping trash around, but it has more to do with it being cheaper to send a container of garbage somewhere than dispose of it locally.

Cost is the constraint, not available space.

There's a very nice park near where I live that used to be a landfill. Space isn't really a concern.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/vCeyDb9tbm29zr549

It's much more the case that we ship plastic to be recycled to other countries than trash. The problem is that then the unrecyclable plastic mixed in often ends up in rivers.

Can you give a specific example of a rich country that is "ship[ping] trash over to low-income countries" in 2026? It must be a tiny minority at this point.

>Not every place has space for landfills... because we're stupid and let the anti-landfill people decide what acceptable space is

Fixed that for you.

My municipality is staring down getting screwed bad in the 2030s so I've gone down the rabbit hole.

Canada also ships trash to the US.

What's the point of this when incineration is an option? Even its wikipedia page has only negatives compared to incineration.

> Air emissions can be cleaner than landfills and similar to that of incinerators.

> Large initial investment costs relative to that of alternatives, including [...] incineration.

> Operational costs are high relative to that of incineration.

Seems to rival incarceration or probably is better.

This is the way to go.

China cracked the pollution issues of burning trash, and built a lot of high-temperature incinerator to burn trash and generate electricity.

The overcapacity leads to a shortage(!) of new trash to burn, and it has started to dig out landfills accumulated from the past decades.

The video from Asianometry is very interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuIEBSb2xiE

Absolutely, but green activists are actively fighting against burning trash. This needs to stop. Even if a country doesn't burn coal it should still burn trash instead of sending it to poor countries. People need to take responsibility for the trash that they generate.

I remember watching that as a young teen with a libertarian bent. As an old man who no longer identifies as libertarian that episode for some reason has stuck with me as the arguments were pretty compelling. I agree and would like to know if the calculations have changed today or if their argument is still valid.